Amid the pandemic, Linden hospital essential healthcare workers demonstrated their commitment to their jobs and communities when they worked long hours at a risk to themselves and their families. Yet, the hospital failed to meet its responsibilities to 72 of these workers when it did not pay them in accordance with federal law. Underpayment and missed payrolls added financial stress to the enormous burden already carried by the workers. The US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division cited Expertus Health LLC — operator of Perry Community Hospital — for missing three payrolls in November 2020, which led to minimum wage and overtime violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Investigators also found the facility illegally deducted break time from employees’ hours of work, despite federal law requiring that employers pay for short breaks periods. The investigation also identified other concerns in Perry Community Hospital’s pay practices, including:
- Paying employees straight time for all the hours they worked and failing to pay overtime when employees worked more than 40 hours in a workweek.
- Failing to include earned bonuses, such as incentive pay, in the calculation of overtime pay.
- Misclassifying an employee as an independent contractor and paying the worker straight time and failing to pay overtime even when the employee worked over 40 in a workweek.
The division recovered $163,785 in back wages for 72 workers.
